Bernard Malamud novels & stories of the 1940s & 50s / Bernard Malamud ; edited by Philip Davis

The natural -- The assistant -- A note to my Norwegian readers on The assistant -- Twenty stories. Benefit performance -- The place is different now -- Steady customer -- ; The literary life of Laban Goldman -- ; The cost of living -- The prison -- The first seven years -- The death of me -- The bill -- An apology -- The loan -- The girl of my dreams -- The magic barrel -- The mourners -- Angel Levine -- A summer's reading -- Take pity -- The lady of the lake -- Behold the key -- The maid's shoes -- Posthumously published stories. Armistice -- Spring rain -- The grocery store -- A confession of murder -- Riding pants -- The elevator.

His first novel, The Natural (1952), is a dazzling reimagining of the possibilities of sports fiction, and it remains one of the greatest and most beloved novels about baseball ever written. In the The Assistant (1957), Malamud created a searing drama of guilt and redemption about a struggling grocer's family and the mysterious drifter who comes to rob, and then to work at, his store, transforming all of their lives in unforeseen ways. Joining these novels are twenty-six short stories, ranging from the early tale "Armistice," set in Brooklyn during the troubling weeks of the German invasion of France in 1940, to one of his deepest and most celebrated stories, "The Magic Barrel," a deep fable about a rabbinical student and the matchmaker who leads him to an utterly unexpected bride.